Automatic speech recognizers (ASRs) and text to speech (TTS) synthesizers are speech resources commonly implemented in automated interactive systems, for example in automated voice response systems used in telephone call centers. ASRs and TTS synthesizers are resource consumptive, and oftentimes must be implemented across several machines that constitute a speech server solution. In order to reduce hardware costs, the speech resources are typically shared among many clients and allocated only when they are actually needed.
Media processing resource Control Protocol (MRCP) is a protocol that provides a mechanism for a client device requiring media processing resources, for example ASRs and TIS synthesizers, to control such resources on a network. In particular, MRCP defines requests, responses and events needed to control the media processing resources. Unfortunately, the MRCP standard exclusively relies on the client to distribute client requests. Indeed, MRCP lacks methods that can be implemented by a server to distribute the media processing resources across multiple nodes. Moreover, clients accessing resources may not have knowledge of which server resources are available and which server resources are currently being used. Accordingly, the most common form of load balancing is a method in which a client sequentially sends requests to various servers until a client session is established. Such a method, however, does not properly balance server loads, which reduces hardware efficiency.